


We Are Bound by Symmetry

by whiskey_tang0foxtrot



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, POV Jaime Lannister, References to Depression, i wrote a section of this and then was like "oh that's a depression symptom Jaime's depressed huh"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 10:25:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskey_tang0foxtrot/pseuds/whiskey_tang0foxtrot
Summary: It was useless to wonder. They had loved each other once. It had felt good and it had felt bad and it had felt countless other ways, but in the end, it was simply a terrible thing.A character study of Jaime and his relationships to Cersei and Brienne, from s3 through 8x02.





	We Are Bound by Symmetry

Sitting by the fire, waiting for the army of the dead to arrive and kill them all, Jaime thought of Harrenhal. Harrenhal when he, half-dead and delirious with fever, had mocked Brienne for failing the man she loved. When she had risen up before him in a fury, naked and unafraid. Fierce. Fire and pain in her eyes, with her hands clenched at her sides, that one motion saying everything while she said nothing at all.

 

He had apologized, then. Asked forgiveness of this strange creature, this lady who refused to be one, who chose the hardest path she could, who would never be a knight and yet deserved that title more than any man alive.

 

And he had done more. Had told her his deepest secret, the one no one knew, not even Cersei, not even that other half of himself. And when finally he collapsed, his body overcome, Brienne had caught him in her arms, and though she cried out that hated name, _Kingslayer_ , it was as though she was saying a name he had never heard before.

 

It startled him to return to that moment. In the years since, he had done his best to forget. To push down the memory of his broken body cradled in hers. Trying, and failing, each time they met again, to speak to her as though nothing at all had passed between them. As though the past could be undone. Always wanting, wishing, yearning to return to a time before.

 

Before what?

 

Before he lost a hand. Before the young wolf took him captive. Before the trip to Winterfell, before Robert, before he began to feel Cersei’s casual cruelty, before he felt the weight of his father’s expectations, before, before, before, all the way back to when he and Cersei were children. When Casterly Rock was a home. When they were two halves of one whole and the future spread out before them, in Lannister red and gold, bright with possibilities.

 

And although the impossible had come true, though the Dothraki had crossed the sea and the Wildlings crossed the wall, though dragons were alive again, though the white walkers had returned and been vanquished, the past remained past. Unchanging. Untouched.

 

If he _could_ change it, what then? Where would he start? When had his mistakes even begun? Was there one single moment when he had made the wrong choice? Some lone decision at the root of all he had done wrong?

 

Could he ever be unmade?

 

What if all that he had done, his sins and his lies and the people he killed, the oath he broke to save a kingdom, the children he fathered and failed to save, what if all had led him here? Had brought him to Winterfell, had shown him the one person who could truly be called a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, had given him the gift of giving that gift to her?

 

What if, what if.

 

He would never know. Perhaps Bran could tell him.

 

Bran. Another sin. Another reminder of the man he was, because of Cersei.

 

No. Not because of her. For her. Say it true.

 

He had done terrible deeds for her. Had crippled that boy, had meant to murder him. He had strangled his cousin, had lied to his brother, to his father, to the kingdom, to his own children, about who they were. He would’ve murdered scores of men, women, and children for her. Anyone she wanted.

 

He had loved her so dearly, when they were young. Together they formed one person, understood each other in a way no one else did, a way no one else could. She was beautiful and fierce and proud, her mind and her tongue sharp as the swords he trained with. As children he learned to kill with a blade, and she with a look, and together they felt unstoppable. And they were, for a time.

 

Then Father sent her away, forced her to wed Robert Baratheon, to live shut up in Storm’s End and later the Red Keep, a prisoner in a jeweled cage.

 

She married Robert but she fucked Jaime and it was Jaime who gave her those three beautiful children. One a monster, who died in his arms, died as the frightened child he pretended not to be. One lovely girl, murdered in a strange land she thought she could call home, another he could do nothing to help beyond watching as the light left her eyes. One gentle boy who killed himself when shown the truth, that his mother was a monster just as his elder brother had been.

 

When had she become cruel? Could he find where _that_ began?

 

Perhaps it had been when they were young. When Tyrion was born and their mother died and Cersei was newly alone in a way Jaime would never understand.

 

Or was it when she was sold to Robert like a brood mare? When he drank his way through every cask of ale and fucked every whore he could find and sired bastard after bastard and she was forced to sit at his right hand and pretend that she knew nothing, that she was meek and desired nothing, that such an empty life could ever be enough for her.

 

Perhaps it had been there always. Perhaps it simply grew larger as they grew older, grew to fill the spaces between them, spaces that widened as their lives diverged, echoing hollow places where once they had been joined as one.

 

It was useless to wonder. They had loved each other once. It had felt good and it had felt bad and it had felt countless other ways, but in the end, it was simply a terrible thing.

 

He had killed to return to her. Killed his own kin, lost his hand and almost his life, thought only of her each day, and when at last he held Cersei in his arms and felt he had arrived home, vows of love seconds away from leaving his lips, she spoke a bitter truth and he felt her words twist as a knife in his heart.

 

 _You left me_ she had said. _You left me alone_.

 

_You return with no apologies and one hand and expect everything to be the same?_

 

He told her he was to stay in the Kingsguard, a swordsman with no sword hand. He told her Tywin had disinherited him, that being near her was all he had thought of and all he had left, he humbled himself before her and begged as he would never do for another, and still it was not enough.

 

_You took too long._

 

He had known, then. He tried not to. But he knew. Not two halves of the same whole after all. One soul, in front of a mirror. She, bright and real and vivid, and he a mere reflection. A perversion.

 

And oh, how worthless must he be, a corruption of someone already so corrupted.

 

He gave Brienne the sword he could not use, and armored her, and sent her to complete the quest he knew he could not. _Oathkeeper_ , she said, and volumes were spoken in the silence that passed between them, just as they had been in that moment months before, when she stood before him naked and unafraid.

 

He tried to forget her after that day. To think of Cersei, the only woman he had ever known, ever loved. He reminded himself of her beauty, her wit, all that had drawn him to her, all that they had shared and lost, the love and the grief that had bound them together forever.

 

She came back to him, for a time. Tywin sold her again, sold her to the Tyrells for their grain and their gold, and she reached out for Jaime, a desperate plea to not feel so alone. He took her in his ruined embrace and kissed her wretched mouth and for one beautiful instant it was as though nothing had changed.

 

It was almost enough.

 

On the voyage to Dorne they passed the Isle of Tarth, and he remembered the lie he told to spare the wench, to save her life. He saw the sapphire water, striking as she had said, and idly thought it might just match the blue of her eyes. He wondered where she might be now, what she might be doing. If she had need of the armor he had given her. He did not remember that it had been colored the very same.

 

That night, he thought back to Harrenhal, to that moment in the bath. She had flung herself out of the water, graceful in her rage, a wild thing shaking with power. In this lonely moment on the edge of sleep, Jaime let himself be weak. For the first time in years, he truly wanted, and his heart wrenched with the pain of that wanting.

 

The wench had stood over him, pale skin naked and gleaming. Her body was bruised and hulking and scarred, and there was a savage grace in the set of her jaw and the gleam in her eyes. His cock stirred and he took himself in hand, and in his mind he kissed her, open-mouthed and hungry. Her hands trembled and her fists unclenched and she moved her arms to circle his back. She scratched her nails into the skin as he bent to suck bruises into her neck. A jagged breath moved from her throat, as though he had struck her in the heat of a fight. One of her hands spread wide on his back, fingers rough and callused, strong and still somehow unsure. Her other hand slowly traced its way over his shoulder and across his chest, over scars so old he could not recall the shape of his body without them. He began to kiss along her jaw, moved his hand to her cunt, fingers spreading to touch her ever so gently, felt how wet she was, and she gasped into his ear _Jaime I –_

 

He shuddered suddenly as he came, aware again of the lonely cabin around him, the bed cold and empty on one side, the dark beams of wood creaking as the ship swayed on the sea, as though he were trapped in the cavernous belly of some horrible beast.

 

He lay awake most of the night, thinking of scars and the ocean and golden lions and bloody swords and promises kept and vows broken until at last, he succumbed to a fitful sleep. When he awoke at dawn he assured himself it meant nothing.

 

He met his daughter and begged her to come home. She told him she knew the truth of who he was, that she loved him, that she would stay. And then he lost her. Another of his children dead in his arms, a reminder of all he wished he could have and all the things he was not.

 

He saw Brienne again at Riverrun. That damned glint in her eye and a glower on her face as she told him she had completed their quest, tried to return the sword. He told her he was proud of her, that the sword was a gift, that she wouldn’t succeed but he knew she would try. And when indeed she failed, he saw her and Podrick stealing away in the faint light, and he did not cry out but waved her goodbye. She waved back to him, a silent thanks for what he had done, and a sharp pang rang through him as he realized how paltry that was.

 

He lost his second son. He learned who killed the first. He was amazed to discover he had feelings left to lose.

 

He fought the dragon queen and watched as his men were slaughtered. He lifted a spear and charged at her, fear and fatigue and anger and sorrow bound together like a lead weight in his gut, not knowing if he wanted to kill her or her dragon or himself, knowing only that if he could do this then _something_ would be over, something _must_ happen, and whatever that was would be enough. But nothing changed.

 

Then, the Dragon Pit. The wench was there, in the armor he had given her, with that fucking sword on her hip, eyes alight as she snarled at him in the way only she could. _Fuck loyalty._

 

_Fuck loyalty._

 

He wondered at the cruel irony of it. That the Oathkeeper would leave and the Oathbreaker would stay, faithful at last, faithful to a woman who could never be the same. Faithful to a stranger, a mass murderer, a woman who looked at him with contempt, who saw only his failures, who hated his one-handed touch, who had loved him most when she thought him a monster.

 

He bid Brienne farewell, one final silence deepening between them as he failed to find words to explain that loyalty was the only thing left to him.

 

Cersei called him a fool. There, watching her stand on that map of the world, he saw her suddenly as he had seen her years ago. His bright, beautiful sister who was as much a part of him as he was her. He saw her as she was now, ruthless and cruel and determined to let the world burn or freeze as it would, so long as she could rule whatever ruin was left. He then saw both together, folding in on each other and fitting together perfectly, an ouroboros of deceit and love and kindness and malice and he knew then that what had once bound him to her was long since dead, if it had ever been alive at all.

 

He left her there. Left her alone, guarded by a rotting corpse in a city sick with corruption, with her machinations and the baby growing in her belly that he would never see. Left her behind to reckon with all she had become.

 

He donned his armor and saddled his horse and left the city the way he should have long ago. Tiny flakes of snow began to fall and as he turned his head up to the clouds, he could just make out a tiny strip of pale blue sky.

 

When he got to Winterfell, she was there. She vouched for him, accepted his offer to fight. She sat at his side next to the fire, and pretended not to care about being a knight. He realized that here was a thing he could give her, something she had longed for and known she would never get and a thing she deserved more than any man alive, a thing completely in his power to give.

 

She knelt on the stones in the hall where he had first visited years ago, the home of the boy he had crippled and the family his had murdered. Jaime's hand twitched on the hilt of his sword as he raised it to her shoulders, feeling the meaning of the ancient words deep in his bones.

 

She rose Ser Brienne, and he knew not for how long they gazed at each other, transfixed by the enormity of what had passed between them. The sound of clapping broke through that haze and when he made his way back to the fire he saw the smile on her face. It was a precious thing, a joy so delicate he wondered to see it.

 

The battle would come and he felt certain they would not see it through.

 

But they had had this moment.

 

That was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This started life in my head as a re-write of the 8x04 sex scene and then I wanted to bring in Harrenhal and then it turned into a character study with one (1) masturbation scene and a lot more Cersei than I initially wanted (read: any). Whoops.
> 
> I played a little fast and loose with the timing of canon. I think I remembered stuff correctly but this was written in several late night bursts in lieu of working on my grad school final projects so really, who's to say.
> 
> Title from the Decemberists beautiful "Red Right Ankle."
> 
> This is my first ever fic, in any fandom, so I hope you had a nice time.


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